Last week, the Saudi Interior Ministry issued a statement designating a number of groups as terrorist organizations among other things, in accordance with the royal order issued by King Abdullah last month that led to the formation of a joint committee to officially designate terrorist groups. The royal decree was part of a broad effort to confront any and all parties that might pose a threat to Saudi Arabia or its people, and the Interior Ministry’s statement was an effective means of implementing that decree.

The committee’s statement is not the result of internal investigations within the Interior Ministry alone, as some have suggested. No, the committee includes representatives of the ministries of the interior, foreign affairs, Islamic affairs and justice, as well as the Court of Grievances and the Bureau of Investigations and Public Prosecution.

The historic statement has 11 articles, which criminalize a range of offences in a number of fields, from politics to religious sermons to media and finance. The first list of terrorist organizations announced by the committee included the Muslim Brotherhood, the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, all branches of Al Qaeda, including Syria’s Al Nusra Front, Hezbollah’s activities in the Kingdom and Yemen’s Houthi Movement.

As for Hezbollah, some might ask why only its activities “in the Kingdom” have been prohibited. What about Lebanon’s Hezbollah movement? Well, the Gulf Cooperation Council has already issued a statement designating Lebanese Hezbollah as a terrorist organization. Furthermore, Hezbollah “in the Kingdom” includes Hezbollah Al Hijaz, the Saudi local chapter of the party, as well as anyone else in Saudi Arabia with ties, whether financial or political/ideological, with Lebanese Hezbollah.

The royal decree and the joint committee formed under its auspices are different from anything in Saudi history. This is a decisive time in Saudi Arabia’s history and we are witnessing a huge shift in the structure of Saudi society, including in the fields of education and culture.

The committee’s decision is a massive change akin to the ones introduced by Saudi Arabia’s Founder, King Abdulaziz, when he dealt with the hardline separatists and “armed” Muslim Brotherhood of his time. After he exhausted all possibility of peaceful dialogue with these groups, King Abdulaziz held a large assembly in the capital, Riyadh, in 1928 to alert his subjects to the danger in their midst. Then, when such talk was no longer useful, King Abdulaziz delivered a fatal blow to the Ikhwan [Brotherhood] Revolt and the Battle of Sabilla in 1929, thereby safeguarding the future of the state. His son, King Abdullah Bin Abdulaziz, is now protecting the Saudi state and its people just as his father did before him.